These are the strange tax sins in your state

In Ladenburg, in the Rhein-Neckar district, Baden-Württemberg built a bridge over an industrial road as part of the new construction of a state road. The trick: the operator of the industrial road for private use wants to dismantle it. And the agricultural road, which will also be built under the bridge, does not exist yet. Anyway, the state highway should not be finished until 2024. The taxpayers association calls the building the “So-da Bridge” because it is “like that in the landscape.”

Costs: Around 1.2 million euros

The “So-da-Brücke” in Ladenburg. (Source: Taxpayers Association / t-online)

Bayern

A tunnel will be built in Erding, Bavaria. But not for cars under a mountain or for cyclists under a road. Rather, employees of the “Grafenstock”, the historic city hall, must walk to the “new city hall”, an extension of the city administration. The administrative buildings are on both sides of Landshuter Strasse. According to the taxpayers association, the city explains the need with the “need for coordination” of city hall employees, but employees cannot simply cross the street, criticizes the taxpayers association.

Costs: At least 1.1 million euros

Sedan

Corona’s emergency aid already flowed into Berlin eight days after the Berlin Senate had set the course. According to the Taxpayers Association, this was too rushed. Because the applications were not properly examined. A total of around 1.6 billion euros flowed in in two weeks.

Costs: More than 1,600 million euros

Bremen

The archive of the American sailing ship “Seute Deern” (“sweet girl”), launched in 1919 and sunk in the Bremerhaven harbor basin in 2019, was supposed to be closed. But now there is a new plan: the Bundestag budget committee wants to finance a copy of the ship.

Costs: Up to 46 million euros

Hamburg

Digitization is often a critical issue in Germany. This is also the case in the Hanseatic city: according to the taxpayers association, the Hamburg police still use 8,082 computers running the Windows 7 operating system. The problem: Microsoft suspended support in 2020. Now the city had to sign a Extended support contract with Microsoft for older PCs.

Costs: 476,000 euros

Hessen

People like to sit in Hessen. At least one could have that impression. Because in Hanau a “harbor balcony” was built, a large bench on a rust-colored, weather-resistant steel platform. The view: An industrial park on the banks of the Main.

Costs: 80,650 euros

The balcony of the port of Hanau: the taxpayers association denounces the fiscal waste. (Source: Hessen Taxpayers Association / t-online)

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

Noble water from a spring at a depth of 181 meters, in the municipal wastewater treatment plant in Parchim, of all places. The small town of Mecklenburg acquired a stake in a company that wanted to sell the supposedly smooth and particularly tasteless “luxury water.” A liter cost about 20 euros and was only delivered to restaurants. But the company initially made losses, then was dissolved in the summer of 2020. The State Attorney’s Office had previously criticized that the participation had no public purpose and, therefore, was inadmissible.

Costs: 651,000 euros of loss at the end of 2018 and 24,000 euros of participation lost due to dissolution

Lower saxony

In the Bible, the Tower of Babel refers to buildings that are too tall. In Lower Saxony, attempts were also made with a tower. However, this became too small. An advertising tower in the Frisian town of Schortens was intended to attract customers willing to pay from the nearby federal highway. But it was only 37 meters tall, instead of the target 40 meters. That is why he is hardly seen, criticizes the taxpayers association. Hardly anyone wants to place ads on the tower.

Costs: 707,000 euros

Schortens’s advertising tower. (Source: Anonymous / t-online)

North Rhine-Westphalia

A currywurst that smiles. Something like that can only be found on children’s television, normally. At NRW, this is part of a new app, a university research project. The application, called “Rendezfood”, aims to bring customers closer to the surrounding restaurants. Food gets expensive. A hamburger can be offended if it passes by. The taxpayers association criticizes: The application is unnecessary and, above all, unnecessarily expensive.

Costs: 1.45 million euros

Rhineland-Palatinate

The city of Bad Bergzabern and the state of Rhineland-Palatinate reached an agreement with an investor more than ten years ago: they bought a Baroque palace from him, rebuilt it and then rented it out. The investor turned it into a four-star hotel. But renovation costs have skyrocketed. Furthermore, the investor was granted a right of first refusal, which he made use of. For 1.4 million euros, he bought back the building that went down in the annals as “Kurt’s Castle”, named after the former Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Kurt Beck (SPD).

Costs: Total losses of more than 4 million eurosThe castle hotel in Bad Bergzabern. (Source: t-online)

Saar

Resignations can be annoying for those affected. In Völklingen, in the Saarland, this has been reversed: the city has notified the director of Völklinger Hütte, an industrial monument. However, he did not deliver the relevant letter. This resulted in a costly legal battle in which the fired manager won the first instance. In the second, the parties agreed to a settlement payment.

Costs: an estimated 150,000 euros

Saxony-Anhalt

In Saxony-Anhalt, people love animals, especially when it comes to the strictly protected European hamster. Due to a new industrial zone in Sangerhausen, a hamster breeding station was to be built and operated for ten years. The taxpayers association expects costs of almost 20,000 euros per hamster. But the project is now on the brink.

Costs: At least 2.3 million eurosHamsters must be raised in Saxony-Anhalt. (Source: imagebroker / imago images)

Saxony

At Easter, all the citizens of Saxony received a letter from Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU). In it he explained the current situation of the crown and campaigned for understanding. The taxpayers’ association cites critics of the letter as “an insignificant collection of perseverance slogans without the slightest factual informational content.” According to the Taxpayers Association, the State Chancellery considered freedom of expression on the radio or as an interview in the newspapers inappropriate.

Costs: 426.217,54 Euro

Schleswig-Holstein

An old car park in Lübeck lifts your spirits. Because it is no longer roadworthy, it will soon disappear. The city administration doesn’t seem to care, according to the taxpayers association. Because instead of quickly planning a new parking lot, he first renovated the old one, only to finally demolish it in three years.

Costs: 900,000 euros

Thuringia

A playground is being created in Mühlhausen. The local children are happy about this, but not the taxpayers association. Because the costs of the playground have increased considerably. Instead of 866,000 euros, around 1.1 million euros are owed, 245,000 euros more than expected. The reason for this: among other things, the lamps were forgotten during planning.

Costs: Around 1.1 million euros

What does the Taxpayers Association require?

The taxpayers association wants to create transparency on tax waste. “Only when we talk about the problems can we make improvements,” Federation president Reiner Holznagel told a news conference on Tuesday.

In general, he criticized the role of the state as an entrepreneur. The importance of criteria such as services of general interest, with which the entrepreneurial commitment on the part of the public sector is justified, urges “to define it with greater precision,” claimed Holznagel. The state has been expanding its economic activities for years and the number of public companies is now 18,000. In 2017, taxpayers would have had to raise 31 billion euros for this, Holznagel added.

It also asks that fiscal waste be included as a crime. Like tax evasion, tax waste is not a “trivial crime.”